STREET MAP OF LYNN, SHOWING MAIN LIGHTING PLAN BY CLASSES, WITH TYPE OF LIGHTING UNIT FOR EACH CLASS brackets can be mounted in place of the single units. Effect of Street Illumination on the Routing of Traffic Special mention should be made of the effect of street illumination on the routing of traffic, particularly so because traffic conditions are a very much discussed problem in Lynn at the present time. In the lighting of Lewis Street, one of the main thoroughfares and the shortest distance between the center of the city and Swampscott, a brilliant illumination has been provided, not only with the idea of deflecting traffic from the residential streets, but also to attract people to it so as to improve business on that street. Throughout the entire plan of the illumination of Lynn, careful attention has been given to the physiological requirements, the selection of the size and kind of lamps, the glassware and the mounting heights, so as to take advantage of every detail that would contribute to the safety, the convenience, and the pleasure of the thousands who frequent the streets and sidewalks. This Magazine Is Not Copyrighted In quoting, please credit THE AMERICAN CITY L Is City Operation of Street Railways OS ANGELES has recently been faced with claims for a higher rate of fare on the lines of the Los Angeles Railway Corporation, and has engaged Dr. Delos F. Wilcox, of Grand Rapids, Mich., for expert assistance. In a preliminary report to the City Council on local transportation policy, Dr. Wilcox dealt with the question of the "political menace" of public ownership, among others: "With respect to possible dangers from the transfer of a large body of utility employees to the public service, I may refer to the favorable experience of the city of Los Angeles itself in the operation of the water and power bureaus. Although it may be admitted that in some cities under municipal operation political conditions are by no means perfect, I have never seen any evidence that such conditions are worse in cities which operate the street railways than in those where private operation prevails. It must be recalled that the evil conditions in American cities which gave our municipal governments such a bad name a generation car lines grew out of the original purchase at what is believed to have been an exorbitant price. Toronto has recently embarked upon municipal ownership and seems to have applied to this enterprise the same high skill and courage that has characterized the operations of the Ontario hydro-electric system. In Great Britain and Australia municipal operation of tramways has been the prevailing policy for many years, and we are accustomed, whether rightly or wrongly, to look with considerable respect upon the achievements of municipal govern What Los Angeles Could Gain by Purchase of Car Lines In his preliminary report to the City Council, Dr. Delos F. Wilcox thus summarizes the case for public ownership: "If the city acquired the Los Angeles Railway lines, it would immediately get full jurisdiction over rates, service, and extensions; it could base its rate policies on actual cost without fear of court interference; it could save the difference between the fair rate of return allowed by the commission to a privately owned utility and the rate of interest which the city would have to pay; it could save the gross receipts and income taxes now paid to the State and Federal Governments, and it could get many of the benefits of unification even if it did not acquire the Red Car Lines (Pacific Electric Railway Co.). "Street railways are not obsolete as a means of urban transportation. The political dangers in municipal operation are no more serious than those under private operation. The city of Los Angeles seems to have an unusual opportunity at the present time to acquire the Yellow Car Lines at a conservative price without having to issue any city bonds therefor." ago arose largely through the corruption incident in those times to franchise granting. "San Francisco has been operating street car lines since 1912, and I venture to say that the city's reputation for civic decency and municipal efficiency is very much higher now than it was prior to that date. Under the administration that launched municipal ownership of street railways in Detroit, that city acquired the reputation of being the bestgoverned city in the United States. Seattle has been having a good deal of turmoil and financial difficulty with respect to its municipal car lines, but, so far as I know, Seattle's only experience approaching a scandal in connection with the municipal ment in those countries. "With respect to the danger that the street car employees would use political pressure to get their wages increased, it is worth noting that in Chicago, under private ownership, trainmen's wages were pushed up to the peak for the country some years ago through the apparent connivance of the companies to force a big increase in fares, and at the present time the wages paid in Philadelphia, under the Mitten management, much lauded for its efficiency, are even higher than the wages paid on the municipal lines of Detroit and San Francisco. "In street railway operation, where the great masses of the citizens come in daily contact with the service and pay for it as they ride, the public has a better chance than in any other utility to insist upon good service and efficient operation. However, I do not wish to minimize in any way the importance of taking every possible precaution to insure efficiency and freedom from petty political interference in the operation of municipal street railway service. "The good features of the present management ought by all means to be preserved, in case the city of Los Angeles should decide to take over the car lines, and the plans adopted should be such as to insure better things instead of worse under public management." Propaganda Which Hinders Municipal Progress "It is interesting to observe," remarks William Anderson, Ph.D., in his book, "American City Government," "how assiduously the idea of municipal inefficiency is spread abroad by those persons to whose interest it is to prevent the increase of municipal functions, and who are to some extent directly responsible for the corruption and inefficiency that exist. A great many city dwellers have become imbued with the thought that private business is highly efficient and honest, while the public business is shot through and through with graft and inefficiency." Dr. Anderson dissents from this view. "There are unquestionably many departments in city government being handled as honestly and intelligently as are the best-managed private businesses." He goes further and sees a positive evil in this current lack of faith: "One of the principal obstacles to governmental reform is the widespread notion that governments, for some unexplained cause peculiar to themselves, are incapable of being improved." Reducing Government and Living Costs by City Planning and Zoning By George B. Ford Technical Advisory Corporation CITY ITY planning and zoning cheapen the The Worcester Gas Light Company testified that the Worcester City Plan was actually cheapening the cost of the gas service to the consumer because the plan made it possible to lay out and calculate their improvements carefully for many years ahead and to know what they would have to deal with instead of guessing at it. The telephone companies in many cities have hailed the city plan as a very distinct help to them in their well-known planning ahead for the future of the telephone service, all of which means an ultimate economy to the consumer. Sewer and water commissioners or directors of public works in various cities, notably in St. Louis, Newark, Norfolk, Springfield and elsewhere, have testified to the fact that the existence of a city plan and a zoning ordinance made it far more possible to calculate ahead, without undue allowance for contingencies, the exact sizes of sewers or water-mains that would be needed in any street to take care of future growth. In various cases they have testified that this meant an appreciable saving to the city, all of which is bound to be reflected in the tax rate. City planning and zoning mean cheaper public improvements. There are many cities today that are conducting their paving and street improvement programs according to the development program laid down in the city plan. In the past they have been accustomed, like most cities, to yield to the pressure of the loudest demand for public improvements, with the result that many little-used streets were beautifully paved, while many of the thoroughfares were in wretched condition. A carefully workedout city plan and program is found to be a very persuasive argument to present to an insistent public to prove why the city should carry on its improvements in an orderly, logical way. Cities all over the country have a tendency to make street pavements either too wide or too narrow; that is, too wide on minor residential streets and too narrow on thoroughfares. It is obvious that the city plan can show how wide each and every pavement should be for greatest usefulness and economy. The result is that the city gets full value for every dollar expended on such public improvements. The city plan also shows how to economize in preparing for future growth. It shows by scientific calculation how it will mean a very distinct saving to the city to impose a building line for streetwidening purposes here and to cut through a new horoughfare there. It shows, as it did conclusively in Worcester and Providence, how the carrying out of certain carefully worked out by-passes should save a number of thousands of dollars a day to the owners of vehicles now congested in the central business districts. City planning and zoning mean cheaper public buildings and parks. In Springfield, Mass., the existence of a carefully worked-out scheme for parkways, parks, and playfields has appealed so strongly to various property owners, who have land lying within the proposed park areas, that they have been readily induced to give or bequeath their land to the city to help on the park scheme. Thus, many hundreds of acres have come to the city gratis, thanks to the plan. In any case, the plan does make it feasible to buy up tracts that are going to be essential in the future at a time when they are still undeveloped and reasonably cheap, all of which means a distinct saving to the taxpayers. Even the best of school boards and fire commissions make mistakes in selecting sites for future buildings. They do the best they can with the information that they have available, but it has been proved time and again in various cities that the existence of a carefully worked-out city plan and zoning ordinance makes it possible to locate schools and fire-stations and other public buildings far more accurately and surely than would otherwise be possible. For example, in one well-known city the Mayor recently testified that the excellent school board was just about to purchase a site for a large new school. Then the matter was referred to the planning board, who had just completed their city plan and zoning ordinance, and they proved conclusively to the school board that the site chosen would eventually be in the heart of a business district at the junction of two heavy-traffic arteriesa most undesirable location for a grammar school. The planning board picked out a new site in the neighborhood on a side street in the heart of a permanent residence district and saved the school board a hundred thousand dollars. That was enough to pay the entire cost of the city plan several times over. It is not that the school board was not intelligent, but simply that the procedure of making a city plan developed a lot of new information that materially changed the situation. A city plan makes the private developer give more to the community. The other evening I attended a conference between the City Council of a charming New Jersey city near the west end of the new Hudson River Bridge and one of the most famous and most successful developers anywhere around New York, a man who has a reputation for driving a particularly hard bargain. He was asking the Council to approve his plat plan for over one hundred acres in a corner of the city. According to the somewhat ineffective New Jersey law the Council really had no hold at all over the developer if he wished to sell his lots by metes and bounds instead of according to a recorded map. Nevertheless, thanks to the fact that they had arrived with a plan and knew exactly what they needed for the best interest of the future city, the developer agreed to give the city gratis nearly eight per cent of his tract (in addition to the streets) for park, playground, school and fire-station sites, and at locations chosen by the city. He admitted afterward that he believed it will actually pay him in the long run to do this. Another municipality nearby recently laid out a street, parkway and park plan for all of its undeveloped area. It was so laid out as not only to satisfy to the best advantage the future needs of the community at large, but also so as to give the most practical development to each individual parcel. The town officials took the plant to the property owners and explained it, with the result that virtually all of the owners, without compulsion, or without having to do so by law, have agreed to abide by the plan. Incidentally, the town is probably saving itself a great many thousand dollars in eventual improvement cost and in the cost of having to rectify a patchwork street system. Zoning pays. About a year ago the city officials in a number of cities where zoning ordinances are in effect, were asked if they knew of any case where a zoning ordinance had decreased property values. Not one case was reported. They were asked if they knew of cases where values were enhanced in a way that could be directly traced to zoning, and they all reported that they knew of many such instances. Nearly every city could name blighted district that zoning was helping to pull back. Various tax assessors have reported that they are able to increase the assessed valuation of T some certain properties that seem to be especially benefited by zoning, and almost never do they receive a protest against such increases. It is universally acknowledged by realtors and others that zoning stabilizes property values and thereby renders the equity and mortgage a safer investment. City planning and zoning avoid waste and lower the cost of development. Various cities have testified to the fact that before city planning went into effect they were wasting large sums in improvements that had to be scrapped or torn up long before they had become outworn, merely because they had not been planned far ahead and had already become inadequate. It is generally recognized that city planning and zoning can avoid most of this sort of waste, and insure a consequent saving to the taxpayer. City planning and zoning mean more than this. They mean a positive economy to the citizen in providing for orderly practical growth and for maximum convenience and time saving in getting about the community and in conducting business or industry in it. In other words, a good city plan is of just as much practical value to the community as a whole as in the wise business man's program of development to the success of his own plan. In fact, good city planning is nothing more or less than applying good business common sense to the development of the city, and if done wisely it is bound to pay for itself many times over. ACKNOWLEDGMENT. From an address prepared for the Philadelphia Conference on City Government, April 29, 1927. Can Cities Meet the Fundamental Needs of Children? HE city as it exists to-day does not satisfy the fundamental needs of children. Children need to play, but it is a rare city that has adequate play space for its children, so located and supervised that it is easy for all children to play under wholesome conditions. The result is that a large number of children in the cities play in the only available place, i. e., the city streets. Last year nearly 6,000 children were killed on streets and highways and 151,000 were injured. Children need to have the chance for constructive, creative manual work, but there is small opportunity or need for such work in the average city home. Children need first-hand contact with nature the earth and sea, birds, flowers, trees. Children are natural scientists and this is the kind of subject matter upon which they should have the opportunity to feed their curiosity. Each generation needs these contacts with the actual physical world for the sake of its own growth and the preservation of the race. But the city, with its pavements and brick and mortar, is starving rather than nourishing this curiosity about the physical world. Probably one of the most serious aspects of city life for children is that it tends to build up habits of cheap amusement, cheap and undesirable ways of using their leisure time. According to the findings of modern psychology, the way in which people spend their leisure time is of vital import ance in their whole character development, and the use of their leisure time depends to a large extent upon the habits of taste formed in childhood. It is for this reason that educators are now realizing that city schools must not only teach the three R's but must counteract the effect of city life upon children by helping them to form tastes for worth-while use of their leisure time through opportunities for hearing good music and seeing fine works of art, taking part in producing and seeing good plays, hearing interesting lectures which broaden their horizon. That conditions have changed in our cities and that a curriculum prepared only a few years ago no longer meets the needs of modern city life has been fully recognized. The reorganization of the curriculum and the necessary assembling of proper materials of instruction attendant thereto is therefore receiving more of the attention of educational leaders at the present moment than any other school problem. The Bureau of Education is endeavoring to be of assistance to those attempting a solution of this important problem. One of our specialists has prepared from time to time a series of type studies on modern life and the elements of social science based directly upon the child's need and interest as related to presentday civilization. -From a recent statement by Commissioner John Traffic Regulation and Other Law-Making in Celestial Cathay "BABBITT THROUGH THE AGES" IS THE THEME OF A SERIES OF CARTOONS BY CHARLES DUNN WHICH HAVE BEEN APPEARING MONTHLY IN NATION'S BUSINESS." THE CAPTION OF THIS CARTOON, WHICH IS NO. VI OF THE SERIES, READS: Wong Foo Babbitt, newly elected president of the Dragons' Club of the City of Unspeakable |